The Shattered Dragon

Chapter 20: Teeth and Insincerity

On the way back to her room the adrenaline spike from telling off Trevor quickly wore off and now she was shaking with terror. There were no unforgivable curses anymore...not for purebloods at least. Once he was finished with Sarah he could find Hermione and kill her with a single wave of his wand and there would be no time for anyone to do anything to save her. It was obvious he thought nothing of her and she knew he'd never suffer a consequence for her death...the rich never did.

All she really wanted was the sanctuary of her room; a warm bath and a locked door. Before she could get there, however, she saw Leanna walking quickly towards her, wrapped in a thick white robe that was far too big for her.

"Hermione!" She called in a loud, rasping whisper, trying not to wake the other girls. "Hermione, can I talk to you? Please?"

As she got closer, Hermione realized why the robe looked so familiar. It was because she'd worn it herself, run her own fingers over the silver thread that made up the scrolling M monogram. A bit of bile seared her throat and she was taken aback at how seeing the robe on someone else hit her like a punch in the gut.

"Hermione please stop walking," Leanna pleaded, reaching out to take her hand. Hermione quickly pulled free, crossing her arms over her chest and stepping back.

"What?" she snapped. "Have some exciting news to share? Come to gloat?"

Hermione had been at the Dragon for nearly nine months. She'd been imprisoned, stripped of her wand, branded as a sex slave and yet of all the ways she'd feared Draco hurting her, this had been last on the list. For weeks, months she'd left herself open to pain and suffering as he choked her and spanked her, burned her with wax, bitten the most tender skin of her inner thigh. She'd trusted him without question as he'd pulled her hair and humiliated her with words, but she'd never even considered the agony that would come with breaking her heart.

Still, Leanna's brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

"What? Hermione, I only wanted..." she followed Hermione's gaze to the monogram on her robe and almost gasped with realization. "Oh God no, please. Please just listen to me," she pleaded as Hermione started walking away once again. "This is why I wanted to see you. I knew someone would go whispering behind my back. I knew that it would get back to you somehow."

"So you'd rather tell me that you fucked him yourself," Hermione said, shouldering past her into her room; but before she could slam the door shut and lock it, tiny Leanna wedged herself in and followed her.

"You walked away from him at line up," she said, her voice laced with a bit more anger than Hermione anticipated. "You wouldn't even look at him when he asked to talk to you so I can't imagine why you'd even care if I did fuck him except that every single one of us knows how you feel about each other. Everyone but you two of course."

"How we feel? How I feel? You have no idea what he's done to me," Hermione hissed, flopping down into her reading chair, her body suddenly exhausted from a day of extreme emotions, a roller coaster of bravery and fear, anger and hope. She just wanted to start everything over. She wanted to be alone and yet hated being alone. Nothing made any sense and she felt completely detached from the world, anchored to nothing at all.

"Of course I know what he did to you. There are no secrets in this house. I know why you hid from us until the marks were gone. I know why he tortured himself for weeks."

Hermione's eyes flicked up to connect with her, expecting a look of smug confidence, but seeing nothing but compassion...empathy. Still, she found herself digging her fingers into the arms of the chair as Leanna continued.

"He wanted to apologize or something...he wanted to talk to you tonight and you just walked away from him and he...deflated. He looked as sad and broken as he had the day after the Gala. You've been hiding in your room for weeks, avoiding him for weeks so you haven't seen how he's suffered, too. And I don't think you really understand what any of us will do for him in exchange for all he's done for us." She sighed when she received no response, not a word, not a look. "What the girls will tell you is that I offered myself to him," She said, kneeling at Hermione's feet so that she could look her in the eye. "I offered myself and he accepted. He told me to come to his room."